CCAD fashion designer profile: Katsiaryna Khadzko

Katsiaryna Khadzko’s approach to fashion design is anything but ordinary, whether it’s where she finds inspiration or how she employs it. Her three-piece collection for the CCAD Fashion Show promises to be beautifully stylish with a dose of decadence.

“I’m very elegant, but also like the whole punk scene so I’m trying to fuse something together where it’s my personality rather than ripping off someone’s style. I’m trying to cook something up that’s different, that’s me,” Khadzko said.

Khadzko said she’s “kind of edgy and kind of girly,” which comes through in her collection that’s partly inspired by glam rock. The centerpiece is an elegant dress that’s as rock ’n’ roll as it is stunning. Created from delicate fabrics and flaunting an intricate couture aesthetic, it’s a significant piece in terms of visuals and outcome.

“This was the most difficult piece I worked on, and the one that took my collection the direction I wanted to go. This is the one where I used the fabrics I wanted, and it turned out the way I wanted … so I got inspired [for] the rest of the collection,” Khadzko said.

Building off this dress, Khadzko created two other garments, a tent dress and a “dramatic” high-low top, centered on incongruous fabrics because black is the dominant color.

“My whole idea with the collection is working with and putting together textures you normally wouldn’t,” Khadzko said of using wool, leather and sequins for the tent dress and sheer black denim and velvet for the high-low top. “Whenever you play with textures you don’t realize it’s all black. When you photograph it or through the naked eye you can see the differences between everything because the way all the [different] fabrics reflect light.”

The three pieces are keenly original — in their relationship to Khadzko’s other pieces and customary for the garments’ styles — but share the designer’s atypical technique and inspiration through revelry.

“I’m all over the place when I design, so glam rock was where I wanted to take my collection because I like to wear a bunch of different things,” Khadzko said. “I used to be caught up in having to find the fabric because I drew [that way], but I then started working … where I pick the fabric first and then draw. Rather than this is my set design, and it all changes in the end.”